Just Something to Share...What do you Think? Thinking Your Way to Weight Loss

Hello to ALL MY Awesome 3fc Friends,

I spent a good two hours just reading through some posts on here. I love this place. Anyway I listen through out my day to alot of motivational speakers hoping to get my dibs one day at becoming one considering all I have had to endure and overcome in my life. My weight is another HUGE thing.

I heard one say yesterday and I thought it was interesting...I am paraphrasing of course....

Basically You are what your thoughts are or what you think you are.....You become what you believe you are....

Another words he was saying.....instead of dwelling on where you are now weight wise, picture yourself at your ideal weight, think of your life at your ideal weight. Walk and talk AS IF you are already there.

Once you begin to train your mind to believe you are already at your "goal" then subconsciously you will begin to attract and move into that direction.

I certainly used a LOT of self talk to get my through weight loss. A LOT. In fact I still do now that I'm in maintenance.

But for me, I need truths. I needed to be brutally honest with myself. Telling myself that I was at goal wouldn't have done it. Nu-uh. Telling myself that getting to goal no matter what, that my life depended on it, that I most certainly COULD do this - that was another story. Another mantra I used over and over again when faced with temptation or wanting to eat though not hungry - "I just don't do that anymore". "I just don't don that anymore". Over and over again until I snapped back into reality and realized what it is I wanted the VERY MOST.

I DID think of myself as a health minded person though from day one. Day one. Even though I wasn't health-y. From that day forward I said I am a health-minded person. One who cares what she consumes. Everything I do with my body matters. A LOT. Finally!!! BEcause that's what I wanted to be. A person who CARED.

I think it's a good practice to see yourself as you want to be. But thinking alone is not going to get you there. It has to be coupled with a weight loss plan of some sort that you actually follow. What goes in your mouth is what makes the difference. Your body just does what it does--eat too much, it stores the calories as fat. Doesn't care what you think.

So, yes, I'd say this is a good strategy, but needs to be taken with a grain of salt and a good dose of practicality. I wonder whether the man who said this has ever had a weight problem...

I think visualization can be helpful... I read something similar once that said you should visualize the person you want to become and play the part until it becomes YOU. Meaning, you should stop and ask yourself, "What would the person I want to become do in this situation?" And then act upon it... whether that means eating healthier, exercising, calling an old friend you've lost touch with, working on a talent... etc.

Our brains are wonderful and complex creations! Studies have proven that positive thinking and visualization do work. Of course, you have to couple this with changing your lifestyle.

Did you happen to catch Michael J Fox's special, "The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist?" In the special, the talked about the difference between the optimist's brain and a sceptic's. There are actual physical differences! The Mayo Clinic has been doing a lot of these kinds of studies, too. The good news is that you can change your brain. You can become an optimist by practicing techniques such a visualization. Picture yourself healthier, smaller, happier, running a marathon, whatever you want.

WOW All of you had something wonderful to add. Of course it's a matter of changing our thinking AND our actions. I think one leads to the other.

Our brains are complex yep your right Girlygirl but SO IS LOOSING WEIGHT lol ugh errrgggg

Kae it's been proven that visualization helps. It's staying focused on what is to come as opposed to getting "down" because of the here and now.

Lambchopp-VERY true very true

RockinRobin...HELLO there again my friend

Jay that's true I am not sure if he has ever had a weight problem per se but I look at it this way, not everyone who teaches and instructs in drug rehabs have had a drug addiction right? It's something I figured could be applied to many different areas of our life not only weight loss.

AND of course all with a grain of salt and not loosing touch with reality in the meantime which sets oneself up for disappointment.!!

I think faking it till you make it is a great idea to keep the motivation flowing and helping you become more committed to your new lifestyle *but* you must be willing to take the steps you need in order to achieve the real thing.

__________________Tanee

"The most exciting, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself."

I think the number one difference for me, this time, when I've successfully lost more than fifty pounds, compared to the bajillion other times when I lost between zero and nine or ten then gave up, is the way that I talk to myself.

What Robin is saying sounds a lot like my approach:
I have a lot of things that I say to myself. One is that I've trained myself, whenever I get on the scale, to say something like, "that's okay, it's just temporary, it'll go down soon..." if the scale stays the same or goes up.

And the other sounds A LOT like Robin's... where I say to myself, "I just don't eat that stuff anymore..."

I have noticed two things-- one is that I'm much more comfortable in the skin THAT I'M IN NOW because I know that I'm doing the right things every day. I don't have to imagine myself slimmer than I am, because I know that I'm taking care of myself now.

The other thing I've noticed is that now I identify more with the slimmer people...I used to avoid calorie counting and dieting conversations like the plague, especially with my slimmer, more weight concious friends whom I figured really didn't "need to worry about it" anyway. Now, I feel like they are on my team because they prioritize the same things that I do. I've noticed that in many ways, my slim friends have been more supportive than the heavier ones who are not trying to change their lives.

This is a long way of saying that I think you can embrace a new view of yourself all the while ACCEPTING that you are still obese.

__________________

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.--Winston Churchill

4 years ago, I quit a 1 1/2 pack a day cigarette habit. When I felt the craving for a cigarete, I would tell myself "No. You don't smoke anymore." Then, I would consciously decide not to dwell and move on to other thoughts and activities. It worked!

For me, the power of postive thinking has to do with self-encouragement. We can all be our own worse critics and its easy to slip into "Great job, Self, same weight as last week...might as well just eat a pint of ice cream if healthy eating isn't helping!"
So thinking postive, imagining myself at a lower weight helps me stay motivated when I'm not seeing the results I want irl.

__________________
“There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”

I use a combination of visualization, thinking of myself already at goal, self talk, brutal honesty, positive role models, fake it til I make it, and as Robin said thinking of myself as already health-minded. I call myself a "health nut in training". When faced with foods I should not eat I say to myself "that is not MY food anymore" with exercise I tell myself "you don't have to like it, you just have to do it" (eventually I start liking it). I lie to myself - "just 5 more minutes", "those last 5 weren't sooo bad, just 5 more". I do visualize myself thin and active. I even created photos of a thin me to look at. I picture myself hiking the grand canyon - that's a really useful one when the incline on the treadmill is killing me and I just want to go home. I am honest with myself about where I am now though. I am obese, that's the fact. I follow it by reminding myself where I was and what I've accomplished, I've lost 52 pounds and I am not morbidly obese. I look at pictures of where I was in order to remind myself not to go back, I keep them right beside the goal pictures. I think to myself "what would Jillian do?". I fake it by telling other people that I really do prefer my chicken breast to their burger even when I don't - it worked too, because now I really do. I allow myself to cry when I really don't want to do squats and would prefer to climb into bed with a pan of brownies, but then when I'm done crying I do the dang squats anyway and then go have a salad. I also read lots of success stories - they keep my motivation up and the more my motivation is up the stronger my commitment stays.

I think the mind and brain are far more powerful than we realize. Otherwise there would be no placebo effect!

I think it could be pretty powerful to think about what you're moving toward and not what you're moving away from. It may be why trying to hate yourself thin backfires - you're still all wound up in what you're trying *not* to be.

__________________ Started 4/14/08 LINK TO PROGRESS PICS 1/1/2009 "It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably" Epicurus